


Love Cannot From Its Post Withdraw

by Callisto



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addiction, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Post Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:06:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternative start to season 5, because I always wanted Sam to detox nice and slowly without the aid of Castiel and a magic plane..</p><p><i>"Sam!"</i></p><p><i>All he gets is another explosion of gibberish. Some English, some Latin, some guttural awful thing a million miles away from Elvish--and his name in the mix of all three.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Cannot From Its Post Withdraw

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely Ancasta, my beta and shining star, to the equally lovely Debbie for inspiring the title (taken from a hymn) and for giving me some invaluable suggestions early on.

[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/callistosh65/pic/000a51qw/)

 

"I must leave."

Said so calmly. As if they’re not driving hell for leather away from a shitstorm of epic proportions. As if Dean’s hands aren’t sliding through blood to try and grip the steering wheel. As if Sam isn’t the one kicking Dean’s spine in two through the back seat.

He does it again, and Dean almost swerves off the road.

"Sam!"

All he gets is another explosion of gibberish. Some English, some Latin, some guttural awful thing a million miles away from Elvish--and his name in the mix of all three.

"Cas, don’t be a dick. I cannot fucking drive if you don’t hold--

Dean glances in the rearview.

"Great. Just great."

He’s alone, of course. Well, not quite. Just him and a brother he’s not sure he recognizes anymore stretched out on the back seat. He risks a glance down and over his shoulder, to where Sam appears to be jackknifing his way forward, like some weird beached fish trying to get back to the water. Another convulsion, torso to toe, and the sound of retching reaches him.

"Goddamn it, Sam." At least he’s doing it in the footwell. Dean wants to stay angry, wants to keep all that righteous indignation burning. But this is his baby, that’s his brother, and while the friggin’ apocalypse may be destroying Detroit behind him, all he can feel is heartsore.

Another kick and Dean has no choice.

A hard right and he’s out of the car and walking back to the trunk, trying not to think about the color of the sky and the way it’s too hot and bright for nightfall.

He grabs the rope, slams the trunk back down and then yanks open the passenger door, the one Sam’s head is pressed up against.

"Sam?"

It’s a long shot. Sam hasn’t really been in the here and now since Dean knocked him out cold and got them both the hell out of there. But Sam seems pretty motionless for now, just the occasional ripple and shiver.

Dean swallows and leans in...and then jerks back when a wave of vomit, sour sweat and sulphur hits him. He’s a fucking idiot, is what he is. He does not get to be this jittery. Not now. He grits his jaw and stays where he is, especially when Sam turns a tear-stained face towards him.

He hates the entire world very much right then. Hates the world above and below and all the forces in between. But yeah, not his brother. He wraps his left hand awkwardly around Sam’s shoulder, trying to get a grip around what feels like corded volcanic rock.

"Let’s get you in the front with me. Flakey no-good angels." Which he knows is monumentally unfair, but there are only so many things Dean can be pissed with at once.

Sam is surprisingly docile. So much so that Dean is wary. He keeps one hand free, ready to add to the bruise blossoming along Sam’s jaw if necessary. But for the moment there is no strained cursing and spitting. In fact, there’s no speaking at all. Sam is about as coordinated and with-it as a spastic Bambi, but Dean manages to get him out and folded into the front seat. He straightens a moment, getting his breath back as he contemplates the rope in his hands. There are no seat belts in the Impala; never have been, never will be. But if Sam is going to be like this, like a withdrawn junkie, then maybe he doesn’t need--

Sam’s palm hits Dean dead center, wipes through the mess of blood still wet in his shirt. Before Dean can do anything but wince, Sam sticks his fingers in his mouth, sucking and licking for all he’s worth. He smiles, red-smeared, says something indecipherable, and passes out when his eyes roll black.

Dean wraps him and wraps him and wraps him, tying the tightest knot he knows.

Toward the end of it, Sam wakes up again.

"D-dean..?"

Dean punches him. Puts everything he has into it and prays to God this one does the trick.

It does. Sam comes to a bleary-eyed ten minutes later, and is quiet and subdued. Which simply means he mutters his gutteral crap instead of yelling it. After a couple of trial and errors--including one where Dean gets scratched pretty badly--Dean ties the rope tied around Sam and the seat, and then loops it down through Sam’s hands to keep them together and in his lap. He unties it to let Sam piss by the side of the road, guessing when he might need to. Sometimes he’s right, sometimes he’s not. He hand feeds him french fries when they stop. It’s drive-thru when they have to, with a blanket thrown over the ropes, or else he parks in some out of the way corner. The last thing Dean needs is some eagle-eyed do-gooder seeing the rope and thinking Sam is being kidnapped or abused. The irony of which catches Dean unexpectedly when a mother in an SUV gets too close and frowns. He laughs, a little loud and long. And then he peals out of there.

It gets better. The further they get from Ground Zero, the less crazy the weather gets and the more Sam-like Sam gets. He shakes, vomits, whimpers and drools, but more like a junkie and less like a demon with each passing mile. The manic chuckling is gone for the most part, as is the dark and rasping Aramaic.

It takes him fourteen hours to get to Bobby’s. He was wiped and sleepless even before the earth cracked open, so he has to pull over and doze in snatches next to Sam by the side of the road. He doesn’t stop for a shower, barely eats, and keeps one hand wrapped tightly around the end of Sam’s rope when exhaustion forces him to the shoulder. For the most part it works, and only once is he woken up by Sam spitting and swearing and pulling at the door handle. Dean just hauls him back in and sits on him until he can get some sugar down his throat. Literally. Sam’s eyes still fleck black, especially when he goes too long without eating, and he’s bitten his bottom lip raw from when he tries to just get the fuck out. But on the whole, he’s doing better.

Until they get to Bobby’s, that is.

Dean has barely got himself out the driver’s door before Sam kicks open the passenger side and throws himself down on the dirt, almost yanking Dean’s arm out of its socket.

"Goddamn it. Bobby! Can I get some help here?"

Sam doesn’t go limp until they get him strapped down in the damn panic room. And then it’s like the fight goes right out of him. And the worst of it, he’s lucid. Dean can be as tough as nails with black-eyed Sam, but when Sam is Sam and in pain, Dean wavers.

"D-dean? ’M okay. Really. Just...for a while? Please?"

Dean hesitates. Looks at where the straps are starting to redden Sam’s wrists. He reaches for them.

"Dean." Short and sharp from Bobby. "You better be damn sure what you’re doing, boy."

He’s not, of course. He never really is when it comes to Sam these days. Hasn’t been since he came back really. Too many sneakouts and secrets over the last few months to be damn sure of anything out of his brother’s mouth.

Except the sorry before the devil rose. That he’d believed. As real and heartfelt as anything he’d heard in a very long time. And then Sam had held Ruby, braced her arms behind her as Dean moved in. He’d said it again as she fell to the floor.

He carries on unbuckling the straps, helps Sam sit up. "I’ll stay with him. You can lock us both in."

He matches Bobby glare for glare and knows he’s won when Bobby takes his cap off and runs his hand through his hair. "Fine. Just get out before Peter Pan there starts flyin’." He waves his cap in front of his face. "And you might think about availing yourself of the facilities, such as they are. Pair of you stink like you rolled in shit to get here."

With a clang and a whirr of metal closing hard on metal, Bobby is gone.

"Ain’t he the charmer?" says Dean dryly.

"He’s not wrong."

Only the most minute exchange of looks, but he breathes deeper than he has all day to see Sam capable of a coherent sentence in English. All his brother looks right now, is filthy and exhausted. He’s not an idiot--Dean dosed him up pretty strongly with dissolved ibuprofen and sugar at their last pit stop. So hissy fit in Bobby’s driveway notwithstanding, he knows this is only temporary, and yet another fucking clock is ticking.

Still...

"Want to?" he offers, gesturing at the small metal shower and toilet cubicle tucked away in the back. "There’s a change of clothes in the duffel." He has to remember to take that out with him when he leaves. He has no idea what kind of sharp objects may be in it.

Sam swallows, trembles. "What about you?"

"Nah. I can...later." He makes a vague gesture at the ceiling, suddenly uncomfortable.

Sam nods, bracing himself with arms that don’t look too sure of themselves on the edge of the bed. He rises, and promptly assplants right back down.

But Dean is there, feet braced shoulder-wide, hands gripping Sam’s elbow and biceps. He saw it coming, just as he’s seen every retch and shudder the moment before they hit the last two days. The irony of finally reading his brother perfectly now that Sam is a hopped up mess doesn’t escape him.

Sam keeps quiet as he straightens slowly, biting his scabbed lip from the strain. Dean resists the urge to turn his head. Sam really does smell awful.

"Dean..."

There’s a finger plucking at his sleeve and Dean knows if he looks into his brother’s face, he’s going to see apology and regret all over again. As sincere as only Sammy knows how to be, and all the more heartbreaking and unwanted for it.

So he doesn’t look, just steers him toward the shower. One step at a time.

"Sam. Look, let’s... Just get clean, okay?"

Dean feels Sam tense underneath his grip. He tightens all his fingers--the ones around Sam’s upper arm, the others into a fist. He tenses too, hearing Bobby’s ‘I told you so’ loud and clear. But Sam is still Sam for right now, sticking his tongue out for balance and tense from concentrating on his feet, it seems.

"Hey..."

Sam stops but doesn’t turn his head to look at him, which is maybe just as well because Dean has no idea what he’s going to follow the ‘hey’ with. It’s just he can feel the effort Sam is making to simply try and _be_ Sam here, one foot doggedly in front of the other. God knows the thread of brotherly love got thin at the end there, with each barely capable of holding the other’s gaze. Dean will lay blame at the feet of Hell and Heaven forever and a day, but he knows in his heart of hearts they mostly dug the chasm themselves. From enough self-righteous declarations, flying glass, and punches to sink the very last seal right into the maw between them. So fucking Winchester typical that only then could they finally turn and clutch each other.

So Dean does the best he can for right now; he takes himself that last step forward until his forehead is on Sam’s right temple. Sam makes a noise, almost a whimper. But he doesn’t turn his head away. Dean knows they must make the oddest, filthiest tableau there in that strange iron room, but fuck it.

He closes his eyes, breathes in all that sweat and blood.

He’s got nothing to say, but he can do this.

Sam is the one who breaks contact first, with something that sounds very much like a sniff. Especially when he ducks his head and moves his sleeve across his face.

Dean grabs his elbow, shakes it a little.

"Baby steps now." His voice is hoarse, but he swears Sam almost smiles.

 

The jitters hit as Sam is stepping out of the shower. Which Dean is eternally grateful for. He’s been sitting on the toilet sit for the duration, making no apologies for that, or for pulling the shower curtain back. Not that it’s any kind of joy watching Sam shiver and try to hold himself upright under a pathetic spray of tepid water. Sam’s skin is an awful color for one thing--gray and sallow across his ribs, raised and livid across his back and legs. When Sam almost loses his balance, Dean swears a large uneven blotch across Sam’s lower back _changes shape_. He knuckles his eyes hard and thinks about three nights without a good chunk of sleep, rather than what could be moving around under Sam’s skin.

"D-d-dean?"

"Right here." Dean clenches his fists yet again. Wanting to step up and in--that’s still his brother almost falling on his shivery ass in a metal shower cubicle. But God forgive him--and Dean reckons they need a new phrase for that as fast as possible--he’s never wanted to avoid touching Sam so much in his entire life.

"Can you..? I d-don’t think I can s-stop..."

Three days ago his brother opened the portal to Hell. Now he’s having trouble with a shower head.

Dean sighs, stands.

"Why don’t...you.. you put your foot here and leave the water on. I’ll get to it when you step out. Look, just step the fuck out, dude, okay?" Sam’s eyes are flecking again, a swirl across the whites between blinks, and Dean suddenly wants Sam out where he can see him.

Sam steps free, one hand clutching a towel around his middle, and Dean takes a deep breath as he maneuvers around him in the small space. He peers into his brother’s face when he steps past, but it’s hard to tell what’s going on. Sam’s bangs are wet and therefore twice as damn long, his head is down shielding his eyes, and he’s biting his lip raw again. Dean winces for him, and he honestly can’t tell if it’s menace or misery Sam is trying to keep at bay.

He turns the water off quickly, his heart speeding up when he has to present his back to his brother for a few seconds. But Sam’s is simply towelling himself dry and shivering when Dean turns back around.

"Clothes are over there." Dean tips his chin toward the metal-framed bunk, where he’s laid out a cleanish pair of gray sweats and a long sleeved t-shirt. Dean remembers the scrapes along Sam’s arms last time.

Sam just nods and blinks at him, suddenly looking very like his kid brother again. Especially when the idiot gets his arms tangled in the sleeves above his head.

"D-dean?"

Unbelievable. A demon blood-drinker and a dork in the same body. He watches Sam struggle and shakes his head.

The sooner they get this show on the road the better. Dean needs Sam to be this, _this_ uncoordinated spaz all the time, forever and a day, as soon as is humanly possible.

 _But what if this Sam is the temporary one? What if the change they’re both holding their breath for never lets Sam go? The blood down too deep, the brother he raised gone forever?_

No. Dean is too fucking tired for his brain to drag up this crap. He needs sleep. A massive dose of down-for-the-count alcohol induced sleep.

His eyes prickle with all of that as he walks over and grabs hold of Sam’s sleeve, tugging strongly. "Buttons. Undo the buttons first. God, Sam."

Once it’s done, and Sam is dressed and sitting on the bed, Dean thinks about leaving. He sure as shit can’t do small talk and his heart is already in his throat at the thought of what they’re both waiting for. Maybe he should--

"Sam?"

Sam is mumbling again, head down. He looks up.

 _Oh fuck_

Dean’s fist flies out.

 _Black, they’re completely black._

******

 _You stole it, stole it all. You and your brother. You can blame the Striga all you want, but I know it was you, Sam. You stole my innocence, you stole my family. Me, mom and Asher had an okay life before you and your brother came and stayed at our motel. And it is on you, Sam, because you could’ve stopped him. Dean listened to you back then. Not like now. And do you know what the kick in the pants is, you younger brother, you? Mine died anyway. Yeah, all that fuss, all those tears and arguments for the right and wrong of it and he fucking died anyway. I was out getting high one night and some lowlife broke in, shot him in the head. What can I say? You were right, Sam. I never could take the things in the dark after you showed me what was hiding there. Now I’m a junkie, Asher’s dead and Mom hates me. And it’s all down to you, Sammy boy. All down to you._

Sam pants upright on the cot as the boy Michael winks out. Sometimes he can keep it together enough to time it right. He can’t stop the hallucinations, can’t control what his tainted soul drags up to torture him with, but he is getting better at judging when each one’s visit is nearly over--the whispering gets fainter, for one. He knows not to talk with them now. He doesn’t ask questions like they’re real anymore. However much he wants his mom to smooth her hand down his cheek, he’s learned not to lean into it. He’s also learned that pain is his to have, hold and keep him focused every time fetid breath washes over his face, every time hands and claws that shouldn’t be real reach out and pierce.

So he bites his cheek, his tongue, digs nails into skin, and ignores the sway of his heart as it skips out its unhappy rhythm: _herblood-herblood-herblood_.

Ruby.

He sees her the most, his skin crawling with shame and need as soon as her "hey, baby" sounds out in the darkness. She’s the one who sends him off the cot and into the walls, screaming words in languages he doesn’t know while she watches and giggles and calls him names. He can’t be sure, but judging from the bruises and aches he wakes up with, he thinks she’s visited twice this time. The first time she just snapped into being right in front of him when he was trying to listen to Dean. She was covered in her own blood, head to toe, and he leapt off the cot and into her chest before he could even blink. He dragged his hand through as much of it as he could, frantically scooping it up. But it tasted wrong, she laughed, yelled, and then she hit him amazingly hard across the jaw. When he came to she was gone, Dean was gone, and he’d pissed himself.

The second time she cuts her veins open in front of him. Slides a knife down her arms, her chest, all that beautiful alabastar skin slicing wide and easy as she moans and he writhes. He’s strapped down again, which he doesn’t remember happening, and all he can do is twitch and strain while she dances around the cot and lets it drip uselessly all over the floor. He wakes up covered in tears, shamed, and more thirsty than he can ever remember being.

******

Teeth.

Fucking teeth.

And a park and a swing and Lillith pulling his teeth out one by one, wiping her hands through the blood on her dress as she licks his teeth clean, rolls them in her mouth like Smarties. She smiles, offers one back...

"Dean!"

Not Lilith.

Not...

"Sam?"

"You need to open up your eyes, Dean. Slowly does it."

Dean does, and immediately wishes he hadn’t when the room tilts and the rocks in his head start rolling around with it.

He closes them again, lets his heart jack-rabbit its way around his ribs for a moment. When he thinks he’ll manage opening his eyes and lifting his head without puking, he does.

"Fuck, Bobby. How the--

Something hot and vice-like flares across his chest. Then Bobby is there, gently pushing him back down again.

"Easy there, tiger. You’re all undone. Had to restitch while you were out."

Dean squints down and sure enough, white gauze dotted with pinpricks of red covers a square patch on his chest.

He blinks, lies back down. He remembers Sam wiping his hands through the soppy mess of blood that was the first bandage and then bringing his fingers to his--

"Sam?"

Stupid question, but...

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Fuck." He closes his eyes, hears the muffled thumps below and wishes he were anywhere but here. Any age but this.

"Dean..."

"Don’t. Just...don’t, Bobby." He’s hanging on to his voice by a thread and they both know it. Good man that he is, Bobby moves off, and Dean hears him clatter a pot or two in the kitchen, probably on purpose.

"Dean? We need to get something ’sides blood into our boy down there. You take this to him and we’ll see how it goes."

Dean clears his throat and sits up. He listens for a second or two but there’s no noise coming from downstairs. But it could just be a lull or something, because he’s pretty sure from the muzzy tinge to his thoughts and the way his tongue seems stuck to the roof of his mouth that he probably passed out a little.

"Shit. Did I... Is he...?"

Bobby is standing there with a tray in his hands.

"Did you fall asleep? Yes. You been sawing away for about an hour. Did he quit making a hullabaloo and bouncing off the walls? About twenty minutes ago."

Dean opens his mouth.

"Did I go down and check on him? Yes. Bruised but peaceful, far as I could tell. He’s back on the cot at any rate... What?"

"Nothin’. I’m all tingly at how well you know me."

"Yeah well, get tingly about my damn stew and take it down before I have to heat it up all over again."

"Sure. Because the seventh time would spoil the flavor."

"Just take the damn tray."

Dean eyes it. A chunk of bread and a plate of stew, together with a plastic beaker full of ice and water. He remembers Sam with measles, way back in that other life they once had. He remembers making spoon-aeroplanes to get Bobby’s stew inside one itchy, miserable little brother.

He scrubs a hand down his face, ridiculously tired and overcome. "You feel like doing me a favor, Bobby?"

"Not in the slightest."

Dean looks up. "You do it. You take it down. I’m fucking exhausted."

He can feel Bobby’s eyes on him, can feel Bobby not buying it. He sighs, lies back down slowly, feeling the pull of each and every stitch. "I just. I don’t want to hit him any more. Okay?" He hates the break in his voice.

"Be my pleasure, son. Ain’t hit anyone for a week or two. You sit tight and man the phones. Rufus is out there somewhere in that shit storm you boys left behind."

Dean nods, keeps his arm over his eyes. Because if Bobby lays so much as a comforting fingernail on him, Dean is going to lose it.

Dean drifts, concentrating too hard on listening to go back to sleep. In less than twenty minutes Bobby is back upstairs. He looks fine, and the bowl is half empty.

"Well?"

"Well what? He wanted to powder his nose, I walked him to the bathroom. He bitched about my cooking, ate half of it, told me to add oregano, lay down and either passed out or went to sleep."

"You didn’t have to hit him or nothin’? He let you do all that?"

Bobby shrugs. "Honestly? I don’t think the demon blood hates me as much as it hates you."

Dean watches him take the tray back into the kitchen. "Well, isn’t that just peachy," he tells the empty room.

He really, really doesn’t want to think about what that means.

 

A pattern begins. Dean starts sleeping in shifts on Bobby’s sofa, regardless of what the sun and moon are up to. When he’s not in the panic room, brooding over his brother, he’s upstairs brooding over a couple of inches of whiskey, or out in the yard glaring at an engine. It’s all he’s got right now and he’s not making any apologies. He can’t do research, can’t look at a book, can’t summon Cas or even so much as look at a bone that might need burning. He knows he’s going to have to stop dragging his feet eventually, but Bobby is being Bobby and leaving well enough alone for now. So Dean is going to tip his glass in the man’s general direction and take that for the indulgence it is.

Sam has his moments of being Sam. His patches of lucidity are uneven, but longer as he comes down a little more each day. It’s the bouts of incoherence and dark, raging insanity in between that make Dean’s skin crawl. It’s far worse than last time, because Sam seems more in control of said dark, raging insanity, even when he’s scraping his own skin off the walls. And it was all in English last time, none of the horror movie soundtrack there is now. So Dean really has no idea of any kind of a pattern, or how deep the blood and its damage now goes in Sam. All he knows how to do is grit his teeth and hang the fuck on, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Which, when he stares into a glass and thinks about it, is pretty much the Winchester way of things anyway. He shares that thought with Bobby on day two and gets a grunt of acknowledgement and another two fingers of whiskey in his glass.

The thought that this might be it for Sam now, Aramaic over English, iron walls over daylight... That thought he keeps to himself. No point in sharing that one with the class. So he’s trying really hard not to have cautious optimism of any kind when on day three they’re looking at about five straight hours of lucid, calm Sammy by Dean’s reckoning, the longest stretch yet.

That afternoon Dean staggers up after a weird dream about a glock firing raisins and gets down to Sam shortly after four o’clock. As the door clangs open--and Dean hates the way his heart pounds every time it does that--Sam turns his head on the cot.

"Hi," he says, calm as you please.

Then he smiles and Dean wants to pinch himself, make sure it isn’t all part of the raisins in a glock nonsense.

Instantly wary, Dean gives a guarded grunt in return when he steps over the threshold.

"God, Dean. You look like roadkill."

Sam is giving him a once over. A _disapproving_ once over.

"Pot, kettle, dude." Dean manages, dumbstruck.

Sam says something indecipherable but definitely English around a yawn, and promptly goes to sleep. Dean stands still for a long five minutes while his heartbeat returns to normal. Then he goes upstairs and brings down a thermos of hot coffee, a stack of pancakes balanced precariously, and some padding for the ankle chain.

The damn ankle chain was Bobby’s idea, and Dean almost wrapped it around Bobby when he first clunked it on the table. But Sam simply tightened his jaw and nodded while Bobby snapped it shut around his leg. Which sent yet another splinter into Dean’s heart. He doesn’t know what’s worse; his brother leashed like a wild dog, or cuffed like a mental patient. Sam hates the cuffs, so whenever Dean is down with him, the chain it is. Burst stitches aside, he’d leave him free, but it seems to upset Sam too much and Dean just does not know what to do with that. Sam showers supervised and chain free, and if he’s compos mentis enough when he needs to piss, there’s a bucket. If not, well, Dean is doing a lot of laundry these days.

Dean gets down there and watches him sleep without twitching, screaming, or vomiting for nearly three hours, and right now he’s watching him putter--honest to god _putter_ \--around the room, fussing with the change of clothes Dean brought down and frowning at how soft the bristles on his toothbrush are.

Against his better judgement, Dean can feel his shoulders easing down. He knows it’s a mistake--there are bruises and scrapes on Sam’s shoulders that weren’t there the last time he saw him, and Sam can’t hide the tremor in his hands very well. Or the way he keeps sniffing, in true junkie style. Still, it’s hard to view Sam as anything other than Sam when he’s fretting about dental hygiene.

"Dude. I’ll get you a new one."

"Yeah?" Sam smiles, looks hopeful. It’s a _toothbrush_ , for fuck’s sake.

Dean swallows, shakes his head. "Sure. Why not?"

Sam nods and it’s silent again. Dean turns back around to the thermos for something to do. He doesn’t turn his back on Sam much, and his heart rate speeds up when he hears the drag of metal on metal. Sam clears his throat.

"You, uh, think I could have some coffee?"

Dean turns, eyes him. Sam is sitting on the gurney facing him. He looks tired, pale, and more genuinely in need of strong black coffee than Dean has ever seen a man look.

So Dean pours him a cup and hands it over. Sam sits, wraps his hands around the mug. Dean leans back against the counter bolted to the wall and does the same. Sip by sip, and in the face of something they’ve done a thousand times before, the silence loosens.

Gurneys and chains and iron doors aside, of course.

 

Sam holds his mug out for a second cup and Dean refills it. He holds out two packets of sugar, aware that he’s probably encouraging one set of jitters for another, but Sam shakes his head and peers up, trying to get Dean to look at him while he’s pouring it out.

"What?" says Dean, flushing. He was concentrating on not spilling.

It’s the kindness in Sam’s gaze that does it, snaps his attention back to the here and now and, quite frankly, pisses him off.

"You know I’m not done, right? I mean, if you wanna go upstairs, that’s fine. Just because I’m lucid for longer doesn’t mean I won’t..." Sam flaps his hand vaguely around the room.

"What, drool in Aramaic and throw me at the furniture?"

He hears the anger, which he didn’t really mean. He’s not taking it back, though.

A muscle ticks along Sam’s jaw but his gaze stays firm. "Exactly. So maybe you should leave."

And Dean should. Sam is in an ankle chain for fuck’s sake, they’re in an iron room, and he’s waiting for his little brother to start foaming at the mouth and hating him. But then again, all that’s waiting for him outside these four iron walls is a man running out of patience and a bottle to empty. And damn if Dean ever took the smart way out of anything.

It’s not easy, but he makes himself relax.

"Nah. My Aramaic could do with a refresher."

"Dean..."

"What?"

But it’s softer from both of them.

Dean finishes the last of his coffee and looks at the fan whirring above. He studies the soft _whup-whup_ of the blades for a second or two and thinks about the world beyond. He should be out there, fixing the mess they made, not sipping lattes with his demon-loving junkie brother.

He looks at that demon-loving junkie brother, searches for the familiar sweep of righteous rage and misery that’s been fuelling his path of action for so long now. He waits for it to build, spur him out of here...

"Get the cards, bitch. Least I can do is ream your ass at pinochle for a while. Bobby can’t play for shit."

Fuck it. Just fuck it all.

They sit, they upend a small wooden box, and they play. It’s a game Pastor Jim and an elderly neighbor taught them the delights of one long hot summer when their dad was away and they had no idea it was really an old ladies’ parlor game. Somehow it managed to stick as a pastime. Over the years, whiskey, boredom, and the occasional morphine high at a hospital bedside have corrupted it into something entirely their own and virtually impenetrable to an outsider.

“Dix.”

“What dix? Dean, you have no nines.”

“Dix.”

“Fine.”

The rhythm isn’t quite there, and any kind of back and forth takes deep breaths and a visible effort. But as the cards move and the scores seesaw, Dean realizes it’s not the game so much as sharing close quarters with only a deck of cards on the agenda.

It’s the easiest it’s been in months.

“Did you come down and talk to me? Um, I mean the last time I was here?”

That’s Sam. Never content with the moment he’s got.

“No. Your melds are weak, man.”

“Dean...”

“No. Now play.”

Sam does. He takes a deep breath, his hand shakes, and the cards fan out awkwardly.

They keep going for two more hands, but the silence is getting heavy and Sam seems increasingly agitated.

Inwardly Dean sighs. He should have known a simple game of cards was too much to hope for.

“Why do you ask?” he says finally, laying down three more cards.

“Nothin’, I just...” Sam drops the cards left in his hand, tremors so strong he can’t pick them up immediately. “Sorry, I can’t even...”

Dean doesn’t think, just reaches across and lays his hand over Sam’s. It’s warm and dry and the right temperature for once.

Sam breathes in, clearly steadying himself. “I... I didn’t think it was you, but I couldn’t be sure because Mom’s dead and I’m not fourteen, but you were the only one from now who...who...”

Sam breaks off, takes his hand from under Dean’s to run it through his hair. He looks at Dean, smiles a little ruefully. “Fuck. I’m not making sense, am I?”

“Not a lick. But what else is new?”

Sam’s mouth tightens, his shoulders hunch, and Dean shakes himself a little. Damn. Context is truly killing all their attempts at lighter conversation these days.

“Ten nines, dude.”

“What?”

“Ten nines. That at least makes sense. Come on, let’s just play, huh?”

Sam nods and another round of cards gets picked up and discarded.

“The only one missing was Dad,” Sam continues, picking up a card he really shouldn’t. “You know, from all the people I hallucinated last time I was down here?”

They don’t stop playing as Sam speaks, both looking intently at the cards on the table and in their own hands. Dean has never been so grateful for a distracting prop in his life.

“Small mercies, eh?” says Dean.

Sam pauses, mid winning flourish. He almost laughs.

Another hand goes down. “They all came. You, Mom, Me.”

Dean raises an eyebrow, but Sam’s not looking at him. He’s studying the cards in his hands, telling them. “Yeah, my fourteen-year-old self turned up to tell me how disappointed he was in me. Wanted to know why I sold him out. And then there was Mom. She...”

Sam looks away, throat starting to work. It’s like watching a train wreck. Dean wants it to stop, but he’s fascinated. He can’t look away from Sam, who’s gripping the cards so tight they’re never going to be able to play anything but go fish with the deck from this point on.

“You saw Mom?”

Dean is trying to keep his voice quiet and even. He’s man enough to realize that hateful emo aside, they really don’t have a choice but to get into this if he and Sam stand a chance at working through the crap festering between them.

Besides, in his heart of hearts, Dean has always wanted to know.

Sam finally gives up the pretense of the game. He puts his cards down with a sigh and slowly lays his hands over them. His knuckles are scarred and pitted, and it’s like he has to concentrate on making his fingers stay flat. “I thought... I thought she’d be the one to really twist the knife, you know? Disown me, tell me I was nothing to her, how no son of hers would do such a thing. Instead...” Sam breaks off, stares down at his hands and visibly gathers himself. “She said she was proud of me, Dean. Of how strong I was. You believe that?” Sam shakes his head as if he can’t. “Coming from her, I wanted it to be true so badly. She stroked my cheek and I felt it, I swear.”

He looks at Dean, eyes wet.

“How was I so fucking stupid, Dean?”

Part of Dean is already twitching to get up, walk round the stupid wooden crate and either punch or hug his brother until he stops. Because a lucid, crying Sam is Dean’s kryptonite. Always has been, always will be. And this isn’t fair, because it’s too much and too raw for Dean to handle right now.

Sam’s shoulders hitch. “I mean, I got you back and all I could think about was Lillith. Every second of every damn day became about me making myself strong enough to take her on. I didn’t… Jesus, I didn’t even take the time to be grateful.”

Sam’s head goes all the way down, shoulders really starting to shake. Dean reaches across and squeezes his wrist. It’s all he’s got for right now, but it will do and he’s not letting go, no matter if black eyes lift back up and hate him. Not until Sam stops crying.

Sam nods, even though Dean hasn’t said anything. His breathing seems to calm as he slowly gets himself back together. He sniffs spectacularly and wipes his nose on the sleeve Dean’s not holding. Dean relaxes a fraction; yeah, he’s still Sam.

“Dude, gross,” says Dean.

“Could have been your sleeve.” Sam’s eyes are still wet and his voice is rough, but at least it’s recognizably human. And the pathetic attempt at humor is the best news yet.

“Sam, you would have been crying like a baby in a couple of minutes anyway. No way that crappy hand of yours beats mine. I guess I’m back to teaching Bobby the finer—

“You called me a monster. That’s why I asked. Because you called me a monster at the motel later as well. And then a vampire and a bloodsucking freak on your voicemail. So…”

Sam’s voice is firmer, stronger. But Dean is not entirely sure he likes the way that ‘so’ is just trailing off there...

Sam’s eyes are still clear where they are fixed on him. But his jaw is tight and Dean would know pissed over apologetic on the face of his baby brother in his sleep.

“Maybe we should do this later, huh? Let you get some rest.” Dean puts a smile on his face that he’s not really feeling when he lifts his hand off his brother’s arm.

“You said you’d kill me, that you were done saving me...”

The voice is too slow, too sing-song. _Shit, shit, shit_. The chain is on, he knows that. All he has to do is get up and move out of reach. Sam looks up, licks his lips and curls them back. It’s so wolf-like Dean’s stomach rolls.

“You’re bad, Dean. Really bad. I should drink your blood.”

“You could try, asshat. Don’t think it’d do you much good, though. Not enough bitch flavor in there.”

The chair clatters to the floor as Dean backs up too fast. Dean curses when Sam just throws back his head and laughs. He never gets to be cool when this shit goes down, he’s always got to be spazzing into the furniture while his idiot brother, _who drank fucking demon blood_ , mocks him.

That’s it. He is so done with feeling like the bad guy here.

“Fuck you, Sam!” He takes a step forward, jabbing his finger into Sam’s space. “I’m not the one with a monkey riding my back, not the one in here because he sold out his family, his only brother, for a demon whore who played him like a ten dollar fiddle.”

Sam’s eyes are only flecking with black, and Sam’s eyebrows are doing that frantic thing that lets Dean know Sam is there and fighting this on some level.

“Dean... Just. Fuck... _go_.”

Dean is stupid. Seriously stupid when it comes to his brother. It’s like some lab rat response in him whenever Sam says his name like that. Only this time it’s the pain button and not the pleasure one that plants his feet where they are. Just for a moment. Just to see what’s what. Because screw it, the chain is on and as much as he swore he was done with hitting, Dean knows his fist still works.

 _Biyshoa, Dean. Biyshoa. Obadmoa dyoheb._

Dean swallows. He is looking that shit up when he gets upstairs. One is the word for evil. He knows that – he should, he’s heard it often enough in his life and especially the last week or so. Usually growled at him low on the demon register.

Only now something has changed. It’s not quite as fluent as it was, not as smooth and deep sounding.

 _Biyosh... Biyshoa._

Dean licks suddenly dry lips. “Yeah, you said that already. I’m evil, I’m a son of a bitch. Dean, evil, evil, Dean, blah blah blah.” He dips his head, trying to see into Sam’s face. “That it, Samantha? That all the demon speak you got left?”

Provoking Sam when he’s jonesing is probably not the smartest move on the planet, and if Bobby were here, he would yank Dean away so fast more than his head would spin.

But something is definitely off. It’s clear Sam is struggling to form the words this time. Like his tongue and the demon blood can’t quite remember them, can’t spit them out with the same venom. Which is fine by Dean. The more trouble his brother has with the long dead language of the devil and Jesus, the more comfortable Dean will be.

Dean’s heart is still thumping to beat the band, but that uncertainty is why he’s not moving, not running.

Because there’s a chance—

 _Daakhoa_

Sam whispers it, head down, hands clenched at his sides. His shoulders are shaking and Dean should really fucking move. Like, right now.

Only he’s pretty sure he’s not heard this one before. Or if he has, he hasn’t heard it said like this, alone and on a long, shaky exhalation.

He licks his lips again, takes another step forward. “Sam?”

Sam looks up, his face close enough for Dean to see black flecks still there, still swirling. Sam’s entire face is contorting, sweat pouring off him.

 _Daakhoa_ , he says again. Soft, almost gentle. Dean cannot move. He cannot. Fucking. Move.

Sam’s hand unfurls, finds Dean’s neck and Dean bites back a gasp at how screwed he is. But it just rests there, fingers light on Dean’s pulse.

Sam nods, says it again.

 _Daakhoa._

“Sammy, I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”

Sam’s eyes are wet – they’re flecking black but they’re wet, and Dean’s probably are too by now, because this is so fucked up.

Sam just keeps nodding. Keeps holding onto Dean’s neck and nodding.

One more time.

 _Daakhoa_

And then his eyes roll and he drops like a stone.

 

 _-ing back, baby. If Dumbo doesn’t want to fly with mine any more, then take his. He’s bad, Sam. Rotten to the core. He was going to kill you, you moron. He called you a monster, a vampire and a blood-sucking freak. Don’t you remember any of that? Baby, I was right there when he did that. I had to watch your face get all pitiful..._

 _I had a boyfriend who loved me, a cat called Jemima, and I saved lives, Samuel Winchester. Children’s lives. In a hospital. And it was good and quiet and ordinary until the demons came and you stuffed me in a trunk and bled me dry._

 _Ain’t no coming back from that one, tiger._

 _Ever._

 _Aw, was Daddy’s little soldier gonna cut your heart out because you couldn’t be saved?_

 _So just a thought, stud. Cut his out first, why don’t you?_

 _Children’s lives. Every day, Sam. And you took my blood, all of it and for what? The seal broke, Sam. All because of—_

 _You_

Something bites across his chest and he can’t move his arms, can’t swing his legs down. So he just turns as best he can and vomits and vomits and vomits.

 _Sam_

There’s nothing left. Dear God, please let there be nothing left. He can die right now, give all this blood back. Take it all, please take it all out, give it back, burn it up, just...

Another retch, another pull across his chest, keeping him in place.

“Sam! Goddamn it. You try that shit again and I will drop your sorry ass in all this mess, you hear me?”

It’s Ruby laughing in leather, a nurse screaming in blood, a feather, Lillith in white...

Sam gasps, digs his nails into his palm desperately, and finally, finally they all blink out.

“Goddman it, fuckin’ say something in English!”

Dean. Dean is here, somewhere behind him. He pulls forward, spits a drool of bile onto the floor. He tries to raise his hand to wipe at his chin but he can’t move his arms. He’s on the cot and there’s a chain across his chest, keeping his arms by his sides.

“I’m... I’m here,” he croaks.

The chain doesn’t relax an inch.

“Yeah? Where’s here?”

Dean sounds angry and panicked. There’s pressure on the back of Sam’s legs, but not unwelcome pressure.

Fuck, Dean is on the cot with him. “I...” he swallows, almost gagging again at the taste. “Bobby’s panic room. With my brother. With Dean. You, I mean. God, no one else.”

The chain relaxes, slithers to the floor when Sam clumsily raises his arm to scrub at his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam. When you go, it’s a real head trip, you know that?”

Sam stays exactly where he is, clutching the edge of the cot on his right side, and trying not to stare down at the dark, viscous mess on the floor.

Sam is still heaving unsteady breaths, unsure whether his body has finished doubling him over or not. Dimly he’s aware of the erratic thump in his ears. As his heartbeat steadies, he can hear Dean breathing heavily behind him.

“Did I... Dean...” he leans over the side and spits again. “Are you okay?”

Because he has no fucking clue. Dean didn’t feature in any of whatever the blood and his psyche threw up to taunt him this time. Well, not directly. And not as far as he can tell. Everything is always such a jangled, chaotic mess when he first comes out of it, only solidifying into chunks of connected ‘visits’ later on.

And Lord knows there are gaps. Marks on his skin he can only guess at, gaps in time he never gets back at all.

Like now, coming out of it with Dean on the cot behind him and a chain wrapped around his chest.

“What... Dean, what d’I do?”

His mind races along with his heart at what sick thing he could have done to make Dean wrap a chain around him.

Dean sighs, long and loud. “Nothing, you dick. I was just trying to keep you from choking to death. Jesus, Sam. You were trying to _bite_ yourself.”

Sam doesn’t remember that at all, nothing even close. He thinks for a split second and looks down at his right wrist. It’s a mess of welts and strange drag marks and he’s gone, over the side of the cot to dry heave one last time.

“Sam!”

No chain this time. Just Dean, banding his arms around Sam’s chest from behind. And that is it. The last straw on the camel, drop in the glass, bird in the bush, whatthehellever. Sam cannot do this.

He’s been trying so hard to keep it in, not to shed any more tears for himself or any of it. But now he’s got no choice.

It rips out of him, sob after sob, with maybe a retch or two mixed in. Dean hangs on throughout, gets him vaguely upright and away from the mess by the side of the bed. Then Sam has his feet on the floor and Dean is a hand on his back and a presence at his side while Sam shakes and gulps his way back to some kind of control, nose completely stuffed, eyes practically swollen shut.

“Here.”

Dean nudges a clean rag into Sam’s hands.

Sam presses the cloth into his eyes hard, stays that way until Dean nudges his shoulder.

Sam can’t look, can’t take the cloth away.

“Hey.”

“What?” Sam sounds awful, even to his own ears, and he really does not want to look at Dean right now. Dean needs to leave. Just walk on back upstairs and leave Sam down here until he rots, with his chain and his bitemarks and all this crap that is never, ever going to go away or get better.

“So you don’t like Bobby’s stew, huh? Or his coffee. The man will be heartbroken.”

Apparently Sam is not quite finished with the tears yet. “Dean...” he manages.

“Fuck it, Sam. I didn’t hit you, you didn’t hit me. We’re calling this a win.”

Sam takes the cloth away for that one. He stares at his brother and blinks his gritty eyes a few times until he swims into focus. “Dean, I bit myself and you had to wrap a goddamn chain around me.”

Amazingly, Dean shrugs and squeezes Sam’s knee when he gets up. “At least you didn’t bite me. And besides, we are talking a seriously low bar here.”

“Dean...”

“Sam, stop. Just...” Dean gets up, paces over to the crate and back while Sam blows his nose and attempts to get himself under control. Dean walks slowly over to the door and Sam tries desperately not to mind.

Sam watches his brother scrub a hand through his hair and press his forehead into the iron doorframe. He holds his breath for whatever may come next.

Dean sighs and straightens. “You wanna come upstairs? I mean, for a while? You can get away from...” He turns and gestures at the foul mess on the floor next to Sam’s feet, looking uncomfortable as hell. He scratches his neck and makes the offer to the floor rather than Sam, but Sam is touched and relieved – if massively confused.

Sam clears his throat and winces at how much it hurts. “Um, are you sure?”

“Dude, you’re practically asleep already. You might as well crash on Bobby’s lumpy couch for once.”

Sam’s pretty sure he’s going to be horizontal and dreamless for a good few hours. He finds himself nodding. “I...yeah, okay. Thanks.”

Sam’s knees buckle twice before he can stand on his own, and he’s well aware of Dean hovering behind him as he slowly climbs the stairs. He takes a deep, unsteady breath when he gets to the top step, his heart suddenly hammering. Maybe he should stay where it’s safe. He looks back at the cot.

“Sam, c’mon. Move.”

Dean’s hand is low on his back. Not pushing, but not giving Sam the chance of going backwards, either.

Sam looks down at his feet and falters. He really does need something.

“Dean...”

“What? No. Come _on_. What am I going to chain you to? A cushion?”

But Sam insists.

******

Sam is fast asleep, sprawled and boneless on Bobby’s couch. Dean pauses at the doorframe, coffee in hand and just leans a moment to watch. Sam is Sam again like this. He’s thin, though, pared down to the sharpest cheekbones Dean has ever seen, and his hair is beyond any joke Dean can think to make. But the fall and rise of his chest is slow and steady, and Dean figures Sam hasn’t even twitched since he walked through Bobby’s front room about an hour ago.

It unlocks something he’s missed like a limb to see his brother like this. For a moment he stares, lets himself feel like it’s a sleep and crash after any other salt and burn – Bobby tinkering outside on his day job, Dean sorting through the crap from a hunt, and Sam, the princess sleeping in the afternoon.

But Sam has marks on his wrists from his own teeth, for fuck’s sake, and the chain he wouldn’t let Dean leave downstairs is clearly visible around his ankle and the leg of Bobby’s massive desk. Bobby is outside because his patience with the creators of the apocalypse is undoubtedly wearing thin, and Dean knows his hands are shaking with more than exhaustion as he rolls up a pair of jeans.

So yeah, hardly your run of the mill salt and burn.

He hefts the duffel onto his shoulder, snags a half empty bottle of Jack off the table and looks some more. Sam, of course, picks that precise moment to snuffle in his sleep and smack his lips, and Dean has to resist the ridiculous urge to throw a blanket over him and take his shoes off. He rubs the back of his neck and thinks about leaving a note, but what the fuck would he say? Don’t wait up?

Sam shuffles again and several links of rusty chain slither onto the floor. Dean narrows his eyes. He hates that damn thing. He also hates the way Sam seems intent on dragging it around with him, like the most fucked up security blanket ever.

He takes a deep breath and reaches into his pocket. This? This he can do for Sam before he leaves.

******

Sam wakes up with a hammer in his head and a knot tying his spine in two. It takes him a full five minutes to realize where he is, and that he probably hasn’t moved since he first lay down. Which must be hours ago, since it was dark when he and Dean got up here and now a watery sun is lighting up the dust and scuff marks on the floorboards. With that thought comes the next; his back hurts simply because he’s too long for Bobby’s sofa, and his head is killing him only because he bawled like a baby before he slept. He peers down at himself cautiously, flexes both hands. But nothing is cut, nothing is scraped...he swallows and looks at his wrists...nothing is bitten.

He puts his head back and concentrates, blinking hard at the faded Devil’s Trap on the ceiling. All he can remember for those hours and hours is a dream about an enormous purple rabbit on a train. He’s not an idiot, there are other images licking away at that purple rabbit even now he’s awake, and maybe a rabbit is all he’s got because it was the very last thing before he woke up. But for right this minute? He’ll just take said rabbit and clutch it to his chest for a spell.

He inches off the sofa, one sore muscle group at a time and wonders where Dean and Bobby might be. Because it’s daytime, he figures probably the junkyard. Maybe he could drag himself to the coffeepot, make them each a fresh brew, and take it out. Actually be of some use for once in this whole miserable—

He sees the key and the piece of paper it’s resting on.

Mouth flooding with something he instantly knows is dread, he looks down at his feet. Sure enough, the chain is gone. There’s just a dull red mark where it sat too often for too long on his right ankle bone.

It should make him feel better. It means something, right? That Dean did this for him and left him alone in the actual house for once? But it’s the piece of paper that’s making his mouth go dry. He gets to his feet and feels oddly lightheaded. He goes over to the table and picks them both up.

 _You’re not wearing that fucking thing anymore. I’m telling Bobby._

 _Stay put_

 _Dean_

Sam reads it twice, three times, counts the words, reads it again. He doesn’t understand. It’s says everything and nothing, all surface and implication like only Dean can be when he thinks he’s saying more than he actually is.

Sam has to go back to the sofa and sit down. He looks around, but he’s still alone, with only the vague noise of birds somewhere outside to convince him he’s really awake and living this. He rubs his fingers over the key.

If his brother’s taken the chain, then why does Sam need the key? He blinks hard to clear his mind because he knows this is something.

Goddamn it, Dean.

The paper trembles, blurs, and he realizes he’s holding it too tightly, almost tearing it. He exhales, wills his heart to slow.

 _Stay put_

Of course. Because Dean may have taken the chain away, but there’s no way Sam should be anywhere other than a staircase away from a locked iron room. Certainly not riding shotgun, and certainly not on a hunt.

His eyes prickle and he tells himself Dean has not gone on without him in eleven words.

 

By day six, Sam thinks maybe Dean has.

Dean phones Bobby, and as far as Sam can gather from Bobby’s clipped tones, he’s somewhere in Nebraska or Iowa chasing down a tip from Rufus. Occasionally Bobby will clear his throat and disappear with the phone still pressed to his ear, and Sam guesses he’s being talked about. Dean never asks Bobby to pass the phone over and Sam tries not to let it hurt. It’s what he deserves, after all.

And whatever they’re saying about him, Sam knows he’s getting to some kind of light at the end of a very dark and twisted tunnel. He still sleeps in the panic room, still makes Bobby lock the door on him every night. But he wakes up in roughly the same position he fell asleep in, and other than an occasional burst of blood across his tongue that really isn’t there, nothing tortures him anymore.

Nothing but his conscience, that is. Because once the justifications the blood made him believe start fading, he’s left with nothing but the horror. The paralyzing, knee-trembling horror of what he did. Of the devil on the earth, a girl in a trunk, and of a brother shoved through glass and held down by his own two hands.

The guilt, quite literally, takes the breath from his chest and presses him to the floor, sometimes for hours. Bobby learns to walk a wide circle around the man slumped against his kitchen cabinets. He pushes the occasional mug of coffee across the linoleum, but he leaves Sam where he falls, head in hands, tears scalding their way out.

Bobby takes to locking all the guns away and Sam wants to tell him it’s pointless. Suicide is a gift he hasn’t earned, in any shape or form. Instead, he takes his loneliness, his guilt, and yes, his cravings, and learns to breathe through them until he can at least stand and be useful.

 _Stay put_

He wants to spit at Dean for writing that. For how long? Forever? And why--because Dean told him to? Because Dean wants him safely locked up so Dean doesn’t have to worry or come back? Whatever he deserves, Sam is not going to do his penance on his knees every night in an iron room. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the road there is a gun in his mouth. Or perhaps a suicidal rush at the devil, one final apology to Dean and the world. But not before he gets to try fixing even a small part of the mess he helped create.

It’s day eleven when Dean comes back. Sam is in the kitchen doing dishes and trying not to think about how weak he feels.

******

Dean pulls up and sits in the Impala a moment, listening to the cooling purr as she ticks down to silence. Bobby is way over on the other side of the yard, shoulders deep in an unrecognizable chassis. He tips his cap in acknowledgement but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. Doesn’t matter, they’ve talked on the phone most days and Dean’s guessing things are still okay inside if Bobby’s out here. Or they’re not and Sam is back downtairs again.

Fuck. There it is, that familiar knot in his stomach he just can’t seem to shake, no matter how far he drives or how much Jack he keeps at his side.

He squares his shoulders and gets out of the car.

 

It’s stupid how fast that knot unlocks to see Sam elbow deep in suds at Bobby’s kitchen sink. So stupid that Dean stands in the doorway for too long without saying anything.

“Dean?”

“Uh...yeah. Hi.”

Sam half turns, shakes the suds off his hands and flushes awkwardly.

“Heard the car,” says Sam by way of explaining who knows what.

Dean swallows, nods, eyes raking over his brother. He’s pale, still too thin, but his color is better and fuck everything, he’s in a plaid shirt, blue jeans, no chains and standing easily.

“I. Yeah, just got back. From...” Fuck, even Dean’s not listening to himself. He takes a step forward. “Sammy.”

“You hungry?” Sam sidesteps whatever Dean had in his mind to do. He runs a hand through his hair and gestures at the oven, chewing on a lip that looks healed while he stares intently through the murky glass door.

Dean stays where he is. He clears his throat. “You have to ask?”

Sam finally looks at him, holds his gaze and seems to relax a little. “Guess not. I...uh, made lasagna. Should be ready. I mean, if you want.”

Dean feels a smile start and he almost gets an answering one off Sam. God damn.

“Absolutely. Give me five minutes.”

It takes Dean closer to fifteen to shower the road dust off and get back down stairs. A quick eye around the room they traditionally crash in tells him Sam is still not sleeping up here, but then he always knew he was going to have to pry his brother out of the panic room with a crowbar when the time came.

Bobby’s there, asking about the hunt as they tuck into a lasagna that’s not bad at all, and Dean is grateful for the distraction. He and Sam keep skating glances over each other like fucking prom dates. Which is insane. But anything that keeps them actually sitting down together is fine by Dean right now. Plus, he’s starving.

“Was a bust, Bobby.” Only he says it around a very hot mouthful, so he has to suck up all the hot cheese that spilled down his chin and say it again.

“Was a... What?”

“Nothin’, son. Continue.”

Sam and Bobby exchange glances and Dean feels like letting even more cheese fall out of his mouth at how fucking _normal_ it suddenly feels.

Dean explains how the ancient book Rufus’ contact had come across with supposed binding spells for fallen angels, was actually only one hundred years old, not one thousand, and guarded by nothing more than a divorcee looking to the occult for self-esteem in the worst way possible. “Seriously, couldn’t have bound a fuckin’ rabbit with that thing.”

“Uh-huh. So how come it took you so long?”

And like that, the balloon is punctured. Sam’s fork freezes on the way to his mouth at Bobby’s question, and Dean can’t help but stare at his brother full on this time.

He looks away. “Car trouble,” he mumbles at his plate eventually. “Can I get a beer?”

Sam nods and scrapes his chair back with a clatter. Dean glares at Bobby, who glares right back.

“Sam...”

“No, no. I’ll get you your beer, Dean. And then how about I leave so you and Bobby can discuss your ‘car trouble’, and how fast you can leave your ‘car trouble’ locked up in the basement forever and ever?”

Sam air quotes. He actually fucking air quotes, and were it not for how shaky and hurt he suddenly looks Dean would be tempted to bend his fingers back.

Instead he goes back to glaring at Bobby, and then at Sam’s retreating back after his brother slams a beer down in front of him and starts stalking his way out of the kitchen.

He waits until the screen door bangs and he hears gravel crunch before exhaling, flipping open his beer, and taking a long pull from the bottle. He sets it down and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth before speaking to Bobby without so much so much as glancing at him. “Don’t you be looking at me like that, Bobby. He’s lucky I didn’t take his head off. He doesn’t get to act all hard done by around me!”

Bobby’s quiet for so long that Dean does look up. Only he wishes he hadn’t, because Bobby is clearly gathering his thoughts and about to tear him a new one. “Yes, he does, son. He’s blood. Guess what? You get to act all ornery around him, too. That’s what you two dipshits do around each other! All your damn lives. Only now we ain’t got time to wait for you two to dance in tango, because we got an apocalypse on the loose.”

Dean opens his mouth, but Bobby cuts him off. “Dean, why’re you here? I got nothin’ new for you, you know that.”

Dean closes his mouth.

Bobby gets up with a sigh. “Exactly, dumbass. Now go tell him. And use actual words this time.”

 

Dean gives it another ten minutes and one more beer before he gets up and grabs two more cold ones out of the fridge. Bobby’s not wrong. Whatever is still tap dancing between them, they do not have time to sort it out their patented inch by ignore-it-till-it-goes-away inch.

And as the oldest, Dean has this horrible suspicion that he’s the one who should probably man up and rip the band aid off first.

When he pushes back the screen door, Sam is sitting on the porch with his long legs stretched down the steps. He’s scratching the latest junkyard mutt Bobby’s taken in and Bobby himself is nowhere in sight.

Dean hands his brother a cold one over Sam’s right shoulder, waits till he looks up and takes it before he sits down on the same step, a couple of feet to Sam’s right.

“Thanks,” says Sam.

Dean isn’t even sure of the last time he saw Sam drink a brew. Which may account for the surprise in his brother’s voice. Or maybe that’s because he thinks Dean will never bring him a beer again. Which is fucking ridiculous but very, very Sam.

“Welcome,” he says.

They sit, drink, and watch in silence as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. It’s not awkward exactly, but it’s not comfortable either.

Sam fidgets, picks at the label on his bottle, and it looks like he’s going to save Dean the anguish and go for the band aid first.

“I’m sorry. About before. I’m trying not to do that anymore.”

Dean raises an eyebrow Sam’s way. “Do what? Get pissed at me?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh. How’s that working for you?”

“Not good.”

“Yeah, well. Back at ya.”

A small half-smile of acknowledgement and they both take another drink.

“So,” begins Sam, with what he probably thinks is some kind of casual interest. “How long are you here for?”

Deans turns to his left and studies him. Really studies him. “Depends on you.”

Sam pulls in a deep breath, shoulders rising to the occasion. “Look, Dean. I get that I’m a disaster, I do. And I get that you don’t trust me or want me in shotgun anymore—

“Sam...”

“But I am not staying put in Bobby’s fucking basement until the end of days so you can drive around feeling like you did the world a favor.”

“Wait, that’s not fair. I didn’t—

Sam turns towards him on the step, and Dean can’t help but check his eyes.

“Dean. I can never say I’m sorry enough. I can’t... Just. I have to get out there at some point. Do _something_.”

“Jesus, Sam. I know that. That’s not. Look, that’s not what I meant.” Fuck. Dean knows he shouldn’t have left that goddamn note. Trust Sam to read it all wrong.

Dean opens his mouth to tell Sam he’s an idiot and they’ll pick things up when Dean is good and ready, but then he realizes that’s the kind of big brother shit that did a lot to get them here in the first place.

Now it’s Dean’s turn to look at his beer label. “You know what? You’re right. I’m not going to lie to you. I did take a while coming back here.” He looks at the setting sun a moment. “It’s going to take a long time for me to get past Ruby, and I ain’t making apologies for that.”

He looks left and Sam is nodding, jaw clenched. Even in profile he’s clearly miserable and part of Dean actually feels okay about that. He’s not lying. He did take his own sweet time coming back. He went to a couple of bars, got drunk, got laid, and seriously thought about going anywhere but Sioux Falls for a good long while. But then he rolled over on day seven to tell Sam to shut the goddamn drapes and fell to his knees five seconds later, fist in his mouth to keep back more than a hangover.

So he’d gotten up off the floor, brushed his teeth, and finally looked that fucking word up to see if it would help.

He thinks about how to tell Sam that it did.

“I gave up on you.”

He goes with brutal honesty because seriously, it’s about time they tried something different.

Sam is looking at him, and he realizes he may have to qualify that. “Not now. I mean, after that knock-down fight where we broke all the furniture back in Cold Spring. I told Bobby I didn’t know if you were my brother anymore. That I was done with you and your choices.”

It’s not easy to say, and Dean can see Sam struggling to stay in one piece. He thinks about moving closer.

Sam clears his throat. “I know. You forget, that voicemail you left calling me a blood sucking freak, and warning me you were done trying to save me was pretty clear, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, no matter—wait, what?”

Dean will cop to a lot of anger and shitty things said over the last few months, but he’s getting seriously tired of Sam throwing that particular self-pitying crap in his face all the time.

“You keep saying that man, and yes we said a lot of shit to each other, but goddamn it, I _apologized_ to you on that voice mail. Fucking climbed down and said I was wrong. But I guess you were too high to remember any of that.” Dean breaks off, aware that his voice is rising and that Sam is looking at him like he grew two heads. Shit, he was so going to keep his cool out here.

He glares at his brother, points at him with his beer bottle. “You know what? Stay here. Stay right the fuck here.”

Hauling himself up before Sam can say a word, he bangs open the screen door and heads straight for Bobby’s office. He told Bobby to keep Sam’s phone charged but away from Sam. He finds it on one of the bookshelves and thumbs it on. One bar left, but it should be enough.

“Dean...”

“Just shut up.”

Dean stabs at the buttons on Sam’s phone and hikes the volume up as he sits down on the step again and holds it out between them. “Hey, it’s me. Uh... Look, I’ll just get right to it. I’m still pissed...and I owe you a serious beatdown. But I shouldn’t have said what I said. You know I’m not Dad. We’re brothers. You know, we’re family. And, uh...no matter how bad it gets, that doesn’t change. Sammy, I’m sorry.”

Dean clicks it off, his breathing gone quiet again. He rubs his thumb across across the screen a few times and swallows hard. God, he sounds so defeated, so utterly miserable. How did they even manage to get from there to here? He breathes in, calmer now. “Anyway. It stands. It still fucking stands, all right? I am not a coward, no matter what Bobby... Sam?”

Sam’s head is down and to Dean’s horror, his shoulders are shaking.

Dean finally gives in and moves closer. He doesn’t try to get Sam’s head up, though. Just presses in against Sam’s right side and lowers his voice. “Hey, hey. Come on. I played you that to make you feel better about...you know, things.” His left hand hovers, drawn inexorably to that palm-shaped groove it made between a younger Sam’s shoulder blades many years ago. He finds it easily, even after all this time. At his first touch, Sam’s shoulders heave, his face buried in the arms Sam’s folded across his knees.

It takes a good minute or two. Dean doesn’t say anything else. Just keeps his hand going back and forth while he waits for Sam to get himself together.

Dean would be lying if says he doesn’t tense up when Sam lifts his head. But his brother’s eyes are red not black, and the dance of embarrassed apology crinkling across that forehead, is one hundred percent pure Sammy.

“’M okay. It’s just. God, you have to believe that I didn’t hear any of that. It was all about how you were going to kill me and that I was a vampire... and fuck, Dean. Ruby was there, and, and—

“Sam.” Dean holds up his hand, because really, they already have a sky-high stack of guilt going nowhere anytime soon, and it’s becoming painfully clear, yet again, how beautifully they’ve been played. And how spectacularly mule-headed they’ve each been about doing anything about it.

On an impulse, Dean changes his grip, moving his hand to the back of Sam’s neck and squeezing hard. “Sam, Zacharia had me in an _art_ museum. All gilt, no doors, and never ending burgers and beer on silver platters. So I’m pretty sure screwing with a voicemail is a fucking afterthought for that douche.” He nudges his left knee into Sam’s denim-covered right one, let’s it stay there. “I ain’t letting you off. Hell, I ain’t letting myself off, but as much as it pains me to say this, we were both stupid. And played – and by something a helluva lot more powerful than fucking Ruby.”

Sam takes a deep breath and looks hard at Dean. “I’m not cured, you know.”

Dean holds his gaze. “Never said you were.”

“I feel so...weak. I hate it. I shake, I shiver and fall asleep all the damn time now.”

Dean nods, determined not to show the horrible little flip his stomach does at Sam’s words. At least Sam isn’t chest deep in how _right_ he was anymore.

Dean says the only thing he can think of. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a chip when you get to a year.”

At Sam’s look, Dean caves. “All right, six months, then.”

“And you call me the freak.” Sam mutters. But there’s no bitterness and Dean wonders, really wonders, if they might actually get through this.

They sit and drink some more, the sun almost entirely set now, the dog long since up and gone to root around in something interesting over by the fence.

“So, Bobby called you a coward?”

It takes Dean a moment to remember the thread. He shakes his head. “Not me, Dad. And well, by extension me. Uh, if I didn’t reach out to you.”

“Oh.” Sam stays quiet for a moment. Then he gestures at his phone on the step. “Is that when you...?”

Dean nods, drinks the last of his beer, and prays that Sam is done with this line of questioning.

“Thank you. I know I didn’t hear it, and I know I broke the last seal anyway, but...thank you.” Sam looks at him, and this time Dean will take that heartfelt sentiment and tuck it away without a word.

Dean leaves it five more minutes. Let’s Sam finish his beer in peace as the last of the sun’s rays fade.

Then he slowly gets to his feet. He nods towards the house and hits Sam’s boot with his own. “Wanna go pack? There’s dead cattle and lightning storms about a night’s drive from here.”

Dean’s got to figure their world for ten kinds of fucked-up when that kind of news puts a slow smile on his brother’s face.

“Yeah? I mean, you’re sure?”

“If you are.”

Dean appreciates the pause, likes the way Sam takes his words on board for some thought, no snippy and instant ‘I’m fine’ coming right back at him.

“Yeah,” Sam says finally. “I want to be. That has to count, right? And I don’t want you doing this alone.”

It certainly does count. Just like it counts that _daakhoa_ means _brother_ , remembered as perhaps a prayer, or even a plea, whispered again and again to the rhythm of Sam’s thumb stroking Dean’s neck. All Dean knows, is if Sam can find his way to Dean and hold on in the grip of something truly unholy, then the least Dean can do is return the favor. So he puts out a hand and likes that even though Sam doesn’t need it, it feels good when he takes it, when he stands close to shake out the pins and needles in a foot that’s apparently gone to sleep.

 _I can’t do this alone._

 _Yes, you can._

 _Yeah, well... I don’t want to._

Words from a lifetime ago.

But still worth living by, thinks Dean, out of nowhere. Worth dying by, if it comes to it.

“Come on, Sam. Quit dancin’ and get your damn duffel packed.”

It feels better than it should to cuff Sam on the back of his head on their way in, and get a kick in the ass as payback.

******


End file.
